Top Register
The top register of the Peace side is arguably the most interesting for the purposes of the analysis of the Sumerian state as new type of organized society. The labor in the lower registers allows for the very existence of this banquet scene. Here, we see the king figure who is noticeably larger than any other figure on this side of the Standard, so much so that his head breaks the pictorial frame. The majority of the other figures in this register are a sort of elite class, possibly priestly class, who sit with the king during the libations. The king and these elite are attended to by two servants who appear eager to accommodate the higher social class. On the right of the elites is a figure who plays a lyre, and next to him stands a figure with long hair who may be singing along to the lyre as is suggested by her hands being held together.[1] The appearance of entertainment also serves as further evidence of a defined power structure with an elite who can subject others to serve and entertain them as they celebrate or engage in religious rituals.
A particularly intriguing observation can be made about this register when compared to the Warka of Vase (Vase of Uruk), which depicts an image of the goddess Inana being presented with what a gift by the ruler. In the Standard, which is thought be have been created hundreds of years later, there is no deity. The bounty or tax is being presented to the ruler for his banquet. This indicates in important evolutionary transgression in Mesopotamian society. Akkadian kings were later referred to as deities themselves, so this elimination of the deity from the Standard of Ur seems a logical progression toward that end; “The names of a number of kings are preceded in the texts by the determinative of divinity. This usage is narrowly circumscribed in its incidence. The first king to be thus distinguished was Naram-Sin of Akkad · and the custom was followed by all kings of the Third Dynasty of Ur except the first.”[2] Though the divine nomenclature was not ultimately invoked in Assyria or in the Neo-Babylonian era, the trend toward monarchical divinity does seem to emerge in the Early Dynastic period. Furthermore, the absence of a deity could also indicate the expansion of stately power. This hypothesis is only further evidenced by the depictions of new structured society on the Standard of Ur itself.